MPI reveals India lifts 271 million people out of poverty

India lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2006 and 2016, recording the fastest reductions in the multidimensional poverty index values during the period with strong improvements in areas such as "assets, cooking fuel, sanitation and nutrition," a report by the United Nations said.

The 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) was released Thursday.

Reports Highlights :-

• The report said that in the 101 countries studied, 31 low income, 68 middle income and 2 high income - 1.3 billion people are "multidimensionally poor", which means that poverty is defined not simply by income, but by a number of indicators, including poor health, poor quality of work and the threat of violence.
• The report identifies 10 countries, with a combined population of around 2 billion people, to illustrate the level of poverty reduction, and all of them have shown statistically significant progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1, namely ending poverty "in all its forms, everywhere".

The 10 countries are :-

1. Bangladesh
2. Cambodia
3. Democratic Republic of Congo
4. Ethiopia
5. Haiti
6. India
7. Nigeria
8. Pakistan
9. Peru 
10. Vietnam. 

• This progress was largely driven by South Asia. In India, there were 271 million fewer people in poverty in 2016 than in 2006, while in Bangladesh the number dropped by 19 million between 2004 and 2014.
• The report noted that of the 10 selected countries for which changes over time were analysed, India and Cambodia reduced their MPI values the fastest and they did not leave the poorest groups behind. India's MPI value reduced from 0.283 in 2005-06 to 0.123 in 2015-16.
• Ethiopia, India and Peru significantly reduced deprivations in all 10 indicators, namely nutrition, sanitation, child mortality, drinking water, years of schooling, electricity, school attendance, housing, cooking fuel and assets.
• The report also showed that children suffer poverty more intensely than adults and are more likely to be deprived in all 10 of the MPI indicators, lacking essentials such as clean water, sanitation, adequate nutrition or primary education. 
• Globally, of the 1.3 billion people who are multidimensionally poor, more than two-thirds of them886 million now live in middle-income countries. A further 440 million live in low-income countries.

India Gains :-

• In 2005-2006, the population in India living in multidimensional poverty stood at about 640 million people (55.1 per cent) and this reduced to 369 million people (27.9 per cent) living in poverty in 2015-16. 
• India reduced deprivation in nutrition from 44.3 per cent in 2005-06 to 21.2 per cent in 2015-16, child mortality dropped from 4.5 per cent to 2.2 per cent, people deprived of cooking fuel reduced from 52.9 per cent to 26.2 per cent, deprivation in sanitation from 50.4 per cent to 24.6 per cent, those deprived of drinking water reduced from 16.6 per cent to 6.2 per cent.
• Further more people gained access to electricity as deprivation was reduced from 29.1 per cent to 8.6 per cent, housing from 44.9 per cent to 23.6 per cent and assets deprivation from 37.6 per cent to 9.5 per cent.
• The report said that Jharkhand in India reduced the incidence of multidimensional poverty from 74.9 per cent in 2005-06 to 46.5 per cent in 2015-16. Mondol Kiri and Rattanak Kiri in Cambodia reduced it from 71.0 per cent to 55.9 per cent between 2010 and 2014.

What is the global MPI?

• The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an international measure of acute poverty covering over 100 developing countries. 
• It complements traditional income-based poverty measures by capturing the severe deprivations that each person faces at the same time with respect to education, health and living standards.
• The MPI assesses poverty at the individual level. If someone is deprived in a third or more of ten (weighted) indicators, the global index identifies them as ‘MPI poor’, and the extent – or intensity – of their poverty is measured by the number of deprivations they are experiencing.
• The MPI can be used to create a comprehensive picture of people living in poverty, and permits comparisons both across countries, regions and the world and within countries by ethnic group, urban/rural location, as well as other key household and community characteristics.
• The global MPI was developed by OPHI with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) for inclusion in UNDP’s flagship Human Development Report in 2010. It has been published in the HDR ever since.